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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

One focal point of the Open Government Initiative is Open Government data. Traditionally, data collected by governments is not easy to access or to process. Access to Open Government data can empower the citizens through easy access to previously unavailable government information, and allow them to participate in improving government processes and decision making. In addition, it allows businesses to innovate value-added services. The participation and collaboration of citizens in Open Government promises a fundamental transformation of government, including opportunities for policy changes, process streamlining, accountability, public-private partnerships, etc. In addition, the participation and collaboration also creates large amounts of citizen-generated data, which is often called social media data.

The Open Government Initiative can achieve the transformative effect on government through transparency, participation and collaboration, only when it can effectively digest, integrate and analyze the available social media data to understand the “voice”, “opinions” and “recommendations” of citizens and businesses. The government’s ability to perform social data analytics is essential to sense the citizens’ responses or reactions to new policy proposals and implementation methods, but the analytics needs to be applied cautiously, since social data may carry sensitive and private information. The Open Government also needs to lay out its sustainable social media strategies, and the businesses and citizens need to be able to integrate the fragmented Open Government data with semantic relationships to get a bigger and better picture of government policies and decision making.

This special issue will feature scholarly and practical studies addressing the research and policy issues arising when Open Government meets social data. We welcome socio-technical contributions on the topics listed below, but not limited to:

Open Government data strategies

social media strategies and experience

semantic integration of Open Government data and social data

social data analytics for government

big government data

citizen privacy in social data analytics

open data and government innovation

Open Government success factors and case studies

smart government with open data

participatory and collaborative government

mashups and apps for citizen services

open data integrity and security

open data and policy making

citizen journalism

transparency in government

open data mashups and visualization

sustainable citizen engagement

linked Open Government data

crowd sourcing, citizen sensing, citizen opinion mining

platforms for open government data analytics

all applications of the Open Government data and social data

The contributions to the special issue should be addressed to academics, government practitioners, and citizens who are interested in understanding and envisioning how the combination of Open Government data and social data can transform today’s government into the government of the future.

Dr. Soon Ae ChunGuest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Future Internet is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Based on existing literature, this article makes a case for open (government) data as supporting political efficiency, socio-economic innovation and administrative efficiency, but also finds a lack of measurable impact. It attributes the lack of impact to shortcomings regarding data access (must be

Based on existing literature, this article makes a case for open (government) data as supporting political efficiency, socio-economic innovation and administrative efficiency, but also finds a lack of measurable impact. It attributes the lack of impact to shortcomings regarding data access (must be efficient) and data usefulness (must be effective). To address these shortcomings, seven key activities that add value to data are identified and are combined into the 7R Data Value Framework, which is an applied methodology for linked data to systematically address both technical and social shortcomings. The 7R Data Value Framework is then applied to the international Fusepool project that develops a set of integrated software components to ease the publishing of open data based on linked data and associated best practices. Real-life applications for the Dutch Parliament and the Libraries of Free University of Berlin are presented, followed by a concluding discussion.
Full article

Open data initiatives are characterized, in several countries, by a great extension of the number of data sets made available for access by public administrations, constituencies, businesses and other actors, such as journalists, international institutions and academics, to mention a few. However, most

Open data initiatives are characterized, in several countries, by a great extension of the number of data sets made available for access by public administrations, constituencies, businesses and other actors, such as journalists, international institutions and academics, to mention a few. However, most of the open data sets rely on selection criteria, based on a technology-driven perspective, rather than a focus on the potential public and social value of data to be published. Several experiences and reports confirm this issue, such as those of the Open Data Census. However, there are also relevant best practices. The goal of this paper is to investigate the different dimensions of a framework suitable to support public administrations, as well as constituencies, in assessing and benchmarking the social value of open data initiatives. The framework is tested on three initiatives, referring to three different countries, Italy, the United Kingdom and Tunisia. The countries have been selected to provide a focus on European and Mediterranean countries, considering also the difference in legal frameworks (civic law vs. common law countries).
Full article

As governments develop open data strategies, such efforts reflect the advent of the Internet, the digitization of government, and the emergence of meta-data as a wider socio-economic and societal transformational. Within this context the purpose of this article is twofold. First, we seek

As governments develop open data strategies, such efforts reflect the advent of the Internet, the digitization of government, and the emergence of meta-data as a wider socio-economic and societal transformational. Within this context the purpose of this article is twofold. First, we seek to both situate and examine the evolution and effectiveness of open data strategies in the Canadian public sector, with a particular focus on municipal governments that have led this movement. Secondly, we delve more deeply into—if and how, open data can facilitate more open and innovative forms of governance enjoining an outward-oriented public sector (across all government levels) with an empowered and participative society. This latter vantage point includes four main and inter-related dimensions: (i) conceptualizing public value and public engagement; (ii) media relations—across traditional intermediaries and channels and new social media; (iii) political culture and the politics of privacy in an increasingly data-centric world; and (iv) federated architectures and the alignment of localized, sub-national, and national strategies and governance mechanisms. This article demonstrates how each of these dimensions includes important determinants of not only open data’s immediate impacts but also its catalytic ability to forge wider and collective innovation and more holistic governance renewal.
Full article

The public-oriented goals of the open government movement promise increased transparency and accountability of governments, enhanced citizen engagement and participation, improved service delivery, economic development and the stimulation of innovation. In part, these goals are to be achieved by making more and more

The public-oriented goals of the open government movement promise increased transparency and accountability of governments, enhanced citizen engagement and participation, improved service delivery, economic development and the stimulation of innovation. In part, these goals are to be achieved by making more and more government information public in reusable formats and under open licences. This paper identifies three broad privacy challenges raised by open government. The first is how to balance privacy with transparency and accountability in the context of “public” personal information. The second challenge flows from the disruption of traditional approaches to privacy based on a collapse of the distinctions between public and private sector actors. The third challenge is that of the potential for open government data—even if anonymized—to contribute to the big data environment in which citizens and their activities are increasingly monitored and profiled.
Full article

The recent emergence of e-government and online social media offers opportunities for governments to meet the demands and expectations of citizens, to provide value-added services and overcome barriers of reduced public budgets. Twitter is the most popular microblogging platform that can facilitate interaction

The recent emergence of e-government and online social media offers opportunities for governments to meet the demands and expectations of citizens, to provide value-added services and overcome barriers of reduced public budgets. Twitter is the most popular microblogging platform that can facilitate interaction and engagement. It is widely used by government agencies, public affairs practitioners, non-government organizations, members of Parliament and politicians. The paper aims to explore the use of Twitter by government agencies in Greece and record Twitter followers’ preferences regarding which accounts they follow. The paper records 27 Greek e-government Twitter accounts and their 107,107 followers. It uses a data mining technique, association rules and two multivariate statistical methods, multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis and proposes the use of a similarity measure, suitable for describing Twitter account proximity. In this way, the paper locates accounts that share followers. Groups of Twitter accounts are located, and their common orientation is described. The analysis not only describes Twitter account similarities and group formation, but to some extent, the followers’ preferences and habits of obtaining information through Twitter, as well.
Full article